Green cities

The patterns of development in which cities have grown differ widely from city to city. Some urban areas have been constrained by geographic boundaries, such as mountains and oceans; some are designed to be compact and dense with growth upward rather than outward; and many more — particularly, beginning in the 20th century — have been defined by significant urban sprawl and the emergence of suburbia. Some were developed off of a master-plan; others, not so much. Growth has often been planned as a response to population changes, not as an anticipatory effort.

What remains now is a wide spectrum of urban effectiveness, from cities that function relatively well (a minority) to those that struggle in various areas every day. In the category of challenges that now face every city on this spectrum is the question of sustainability. Historically, this area hasn’t been a priority. Acknowledging a human future that will be almost entirely urban, and recognizing that cities are the biggest contributor toward the climate crisis, means that the subject of sustainability is now a top priority.

What do I mean by sustainability in this context? Here, it’s the ability of humans to exist in harmony with nature while ensuring that today’s human behaviors don’t deprive future generations of what they require for healthy and prosperous lives. Adopting environmentally sustainable actions has become a moral and imperative obligation for city dwellers.

Sustainability can be extended to include social and economic measures as well. Together with the environment, accounting for and reporting on the impact of these three dimensions (social, economic, and environmental) by cities and organizations is known as the triple-bottom line.

The history of humans, particularly since the advent of the industrial revolutions, has been a history of our limitless exploitation of nature's resources. Humans have treated the planet as if it were an infinite provider and as an ecosystem immune from harm. Oh, boy — have we been wrong! The urban world has come at the cost of depleted natural resources and a planet in distress. Sustainability recognizes that this situation cannot continue and that every citizen of the planet must take proactive steps to bend the curve to ensure a greener future.

If humans are going to make a huge difference in working toward carefully managing natural resources and healing the planet, it’s going to happen primarily in cities. (Rural areas don’t get a pass, but the issues are different there.)

Creating more sustainable urban environments means creating and retrofitting cities with green efforts. Cities must become green cities.

Cities with green initiatives are a part of what is often seen as a movement. It’s been happening for many years, but with projections for the climate crisis growing more dire every year, and with more community awareness of air and water quality, for example, the adoption of sustainability initiatives has kicked up a notch.

The green cities movement is now made up of thousands of cities around the world that are working hard to decrease the human impact on the environment by engaging in these (and thousands of other) creative initiatives, for example:

• Reducing waste
• Expanding recycling
• Increasing housing density
• Expanding green spaces such as parks
• Decreasing carbon emissions
• Supporting urban farming
• Encouraging ecofriendly local businesses
• Increasing public transportation
• Making travel by foot or bicycle more accessible
• Reducing vehicle congestion via tolls and prohibited areas
• Supporting green buildings (as described in Chapter 3)
• Planting more trees (urban forests, for example)

As the third decade of the 21st century begins, cities are focusing more on their green efforts. Communities are demanding it. Many cities now have green teams, including a senior executive to lead efforts such as a chief sustainability officer (CSO), and such teams have often come up with multiyear green strategies with a range of different types of projects.

City leaders are creating regulations, policies, and other governance structures to ensure that sustainability is embedded into city operations. They’re also passing laws to enforce environmentally friendly behaviors. For example, the elimination of plastic bags used in retail has been widely adopted by cities around the world.

Many cities have also adopted carbon reduction goals, which are sometimes mandated at a regional or national level as well. Some communities have opted to be more aggressive than even those mandates suggest. These goals can include targets for moving toward more electric vehicles and reductions in the use of coal, gas, and oil for energy production.

The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are 17 bold-but-achievable major target areas for improving the lives of people all over the world, has several areas that are addressed via greener cities. I discuss the SDGs in more detail in Chapter 2.

A green city is a smart city.

Inclusive cities

The emergence of cities over the past few hundred years has been the leading driver of better living. In developed nations, cities have the best chance to provide superior healthcare, education, job opportunities, and overall quality of life to the most amount of people. In developing nations, cities are quickly bringing millions of people out of poverty and are ultimately providing many of the same benefits as developed cities. With over half of the planet now living in cities, this means around 4 billion more humans have the potential for a better life.

However, as is all too clear, access to opportunities and a higher quality of life isn’t evenly distributed. Though the rising tide typically lifts all ships, too many people in cities today aren’t experiencing many of the benefits afforded to others.

Cities continue to exclude far too many people from enjoying urban advantages by creating adverse conditions such as

• Economic inequality
• Social alienation
• Poor education
• Housing unaffordability
• Insufficient access to services such as public transport
• Poor support for people with disabilities
• Lack of access to technology (Internet access, for example)
• Challenging environmental factors

Cities need to become more inclusive. Urban inequality is a human rights issue.

An inclusive city is one that, in the process of its development and daily operations, acknowledges that a focused and concerted effort must be made to expand opportunities and prosperity to all constituents.

Categories of community members that are disproportionately excluded from equal opportunities include, but are not limited to, people in lower income brackets, elderly populations, single mothers, minority groups, and people with physical and mental disabilities.

Ensuring that cities are more inclusive means taking proactive steps, but the process starts with your acknowledgment of the issues. Work must be done to research and measure the extent of the challenges facing those who are excluded. With that task complete, you can then develop a strategy to deal with the issues.

Smart city strategies can be one of the right places to design, develop, and embed initiatives to tackle issues of inclusion. You will be well served by aligning your smart city work with the goals of inclusiveness.

Here are a few examples:

• Developing innovation districts, which provide incentives and low barriers of entry for more people to start businesses. (I discuss innovation districts in Chapter 7.)
• Using data to improve the understanding of the community, leading to better data-informed decision-making. (I discuss urban data in Chapter 7.)
• Providing for expanded, low-cost (or free) Internet access so that residents can access information around education, health, and jobs as well as carry out jobs that can be performed online. Those online services must also be accessible to people with disabilities, such as those with impaired eyesight or hearing.
• Allowing for physical accommodations that enable all people to access all areas and services, such as buildings and transportation.
• Providing economic education as a public service.
• Providing low cost (or free) public transportation to support greater access to employment centers.
• Addressing crime with new technologies, such as motion-activated streetlights.
• Proving your identity. In some cities, simply proving your identity can be a challenge, which can hinder the ability to have something as fundamental as a bank account. Technology can help with this issue.

Many cities in the world struggle when it comes to fostering inclusiveness. If you strive for a more peaceful and fair future for all people, inclusiveness concerns have to be acted on. In fact, it’s number 11 in the SDGs (which are discussed in Chapter 2). The goal states: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.”

It’s hard to imagine a city being smart if it doesn’t act to be inclusive.

Healthy cities

You have much to consider as you strive to increase the quality of life for as many people as possible in cities. Supporting the future of cities isn’t a one-dimensional challenge. The positive urban aspirations of humans — the journey to smarter communities — must accommodate the totality of the human experience. Consider that city dwellers are exposed every single day to varying degrees of

• Noise
• Air and water pollution
• Crowding
• Public safety concerns
• Lack of open spaces
• Mental and physical challenges
• Disease factors
• Issues of equality and equity
• Poor sanitation measures

Too many cities, and their rapid urban development, are imposing a burden on the well-being of communities.

You cannot separate the city lifestyle and environment from humans’ state of health. Quality of life is greatly impacted by whether cities are healthy places to live.

In recognition of the role that cities play in the health of communities, another layer of strategy is required — it’s a component of the multidimensional nature of smart cities. Thousands of cities around the world are now pursuing healthy city activities. These cities are working to create and improve their physical and social environments to enable their constituents to live and experience all the fullness of life.

This is the idea behind healthy cities.

Unsurprisingly, the World Health Organization (WHO), based in Geneva, Switzerland, has played an important role in defining and supporting the concept of healthy cities. Taken directly from its website (www.who.int/healthy_settings/types/cities/en), WHO maintains that the aim of a healthy city is to

• Create a health-supportive environment
• Achieve a good quality of life
• Accommodate basic sanitation and hygiene needs
• Supply access to healthcare

All cities have the capacity to become healthy cities. It begins — similarly to smart, sustainable, and inclusive city efforts — with a recognition of the need and then a commitment to act. At their core, healthy cities are about incorporating health considerations into urban development and management.

According to the Alliance for Healthy Cities (www.alliance-healthycities.com/index.html), a strategy for a healthy city should include these ingredients:

• Political commitment
• Community participation
• Development of a city health profile
• Local action plan
• Periodic monitoring and evaluation
• Research and analysis
• Information sharing
• Linkage to community and human development
• National and international networking

Aligning with the theme that a smart city is never completed, a healthy city is also defined by the continuation of efforts rather than by a defined final outcome. It isn’t measured by achieving a particular health status. Moreover, it makes health a priority and attempts to improve the health of everyone. What’s fundamentally required is a commitment to health and a structure and process to address the challenges that may arise.

Healthy cities place well-being high on the political and social agendas and recognize that success can be achieved only by the collaboration of public, private, voluntary, and community organizations.

Healthy cities are smart cities.

Regenerative cities

Cities are enormous consumers of resources. Food, water, energy, and vast amounts of goods travel into cities — sometimes, from great distances. These items are processed by the city and its inhabitants and then discarded in the form of waste and pollution to the environment. In addition, activities such as transportation, energy production, and factory work consume fossil fuels and produce greenhouse gases that science now confirms are responsible for climate change.

As many cities grow, their appetites follow, meaning more resources are needed to meet demand. Sure, the urban world is often prosperous, but it doesn’t come free. The price to the planet is exceptionally high.

If urbanization is going to be viable in the long term, excessive resource consumption must change.

Green and sustainable cities are about ensuring that today’s cities can meet their own needs without compromising future generations from being able to meet their needs. This important notion is finding a welcome reception in many cities around the world. However, with cities rapidly growing and resource consumption exceeding what the planet can provide, the initial goal of many cities, for a green and sustainable future, may not be sufficient over the long term.

A bolder ambition comes in the form of a relatively new concept called the regenerative city. Regenerative urban development is based on the recognition that, in order for the earth to continue to provide in abundance, a city must work to ensure the health of the environment. More specifically, regenerative cities aim to put in place efforts to reduce resource consumption, particularly when the ability to replenish those resources has been exceeded. The goal is to reverse natural resource depletion by actively improving the capacity of natural ecosystems.

Okay, what might a regenerative city look like in practice? At its core, a regenerative city must rethink its traditional role away from linear consumption — a process predicated on the notion that a city exists to process resources and produce and dispose of waste. (See Figure 11-1.) Instead, a city must find ways to replicate the circular systems found in nature, where waste becomes input for new growth. As examples, used freshwater can be treated and then reintroduced into other urban water needs, waste can be used to produce energy, and nutrients in waste and sewage can be applied to urban agriculture.

Regenerative cities are also about self-sufficiency. Rather than rely on importing all needs, a regenerative city can look for ways to produce its own energy, food, and other goods from within its own boundaries. If everything cannot be produced locally, city leaders and providers should attempt to reach out just a little further beyond their own borders to elicit needs. The idea here is to acquire resource needs as close to its geographic location as possible. Connecting a city to its own land and resources creates a special relationship for communities that elevates the value of resources and can build a higher appreciation of the cost of consumption.

The aspirations of the regenerative city are ambitious. They require a deep cultural, emotional, and behavioral shift in the relationship communities have with their city. It means seeing a city as a living ecosystem that must be treated with sensitivity and care. A constituent can no longer see the city as an unlimited provider of resources. That person must understand their relationship relative to the sustainability and health of their city and then make completely new choices based on that understanding.

A small number of cities around the world have committed themselves to becoming regenerative cities — Wittenberg, in Germany, for example — while others incorporate aspects of the concept in their sustainability efforts.

ReGen Villages (www.regenvillages.com/) is an organization that partners with landowners and architects to develop resilient neighborhoods that power and feed self-reliant families. Their approach to regenerative resiliency includes the use of artificial intelligence to enable communities to thrive through surplus energy, clean water, and high-yield organic food.

The idea of regenerative cities is bold and will be difficult to pursue for many communities. For those who have the nerve to take the journey, it won’t be quick, either.

Though significant challenges must be overcome, the regenerative city may be a big idea whose time has come. It’s a smart city strategy.

Hyperloop

A vital function of a city is to support the movement of people and goods from place to place. That may be between points in a city or a way to travel to and from other areas outside the metropolitan area. You only have to look at any city center to observe the wide variety of mechanisms that have been created for this job.

The size of many cities now means that walking as a means to get where you want to go is somewhat limited. Bicycles and e-bikes fill a large need, particularly in municipalities that have made the investment to support them. Ironically, bikes, which have been around for a long time, are one of the great new city ideas whose time has finally come. They are carbon-free and wonderful for human health.

However, today it’s the gas-powered vehicle that has the dominant role in moving people around. The streets and highways are congested with cars, buses, and trucks. No doubt these vehicles have had a good run, but between the carbon they spew into the air, the perpetual traffic jams they create, the increasing costs their owners incur, and the high number of accidents involving them, they present urgent challenges. (I discuss a potentially better, alternative future of autonomous vehicles in Chapter 8.)

All manner of trains service cities, and these are markedly better ways to move people and goods. From light rail to bullet trains, they’re often fast, low-carbon emitters that do the job safer and at a lower cost — everything that a car isn’t, in other words. But they too have their limitations. Many are not that fast, they are expensive to build, and connections can be limited. The opportunities for new, transformational means of transport are wide open.

One example of a big, new, futuristic idea for transporting people and goods is Hyperloop. Hyperloop (which is an idea from Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX) is a form of belowground and aboveground transportation that can move at a speed of 700 miles (1127 km) per hour in floating pods. These pods, shown in Figure 11-2, travel within low-pressure tubes on air skis to reduce friction. Reducing air friction enables the pods to travel at the speed of airlines but without leaving the ground.

The power for the system can be derived from solar panels along the tube route. When all costs are considered, Hyperloop is supposed to be much cheaper to build and operate than traditional rail. It should also be much faster to build than a new train network. An intricate system of connections and frequent departures can enable people to travel to more locations without having to transfer to another pod.

Hyperloop is still in the experimental and early development phases. The idea has been adopted by a handful of organizations, each with its own, particular flavor of system. Projects are in various stages in the US, India, Saudi Arabia, Europe, and the UAE.

If successful (and it’s still a big if), Hyperloop networks might make travel between major cities such as Melbourne and Sydney in Australia fast, convenient, and greener. It would offer a compelling alternative to air travel. Hyperloop might enable people to live farther away from work (perhaps in lower-cost areas), further increase trade, and lower the cost of travel.

People traveling at 700 mph in pods within tubes may sound like science fiction, but it’s this kind of bold, visionary thinking that will help build a better, smarter tomorrow.

To learn more, check out this video showing an implementation being developed from Virgin, called Hyperloop One:

https://hyperloop-one.com

Flying cars

And here we are, with the real reason you’re reading this book. A multitude of futuristic cartoons, novels, and movies promised us cities full of flying cars.

Surely smart cities must have cars that fly?

That’s the dream — convenient, fast, and uncongested travel. But alas, as you stare into the skies above any city today, there are no cars to be seen. How can humans be entering the third decade of the 21st century and not be hopping in and out of their flying vehicles?

The absence of the flying car isn’t caused by any lack of trying — it has been a dream for a long time. But the flying car has yet to become widely available for such reasons as high costs, energy needs for sustained flight, and the availability of necessary technology and materials. Sure, there have been commercial flying cars, but only a limited number of buyers. Until recently, the flying car has been a niche market.

But the times are changing. Among the reasons are the availability of new technologies and materials, significant risk-taking investments, improved batteries, smarter software, and the potential for a larger market, given the significant increase in affluent urbanites in many major cities.

It looks a bit like a race now to see who can gain early entry into the urban flying car market. A large number of carmakers, airplane manufacturers, and a growing list of start-ups are rushing to produce the first viable, consumer-focused flying cars and air taxis. Among the known players now making rapid progress are Boeing, Porsche, Uber, Airbus, and Ehang.

There’s a wide range of design concepts, with many of them adopting the technology and inspiration of drones but at a scale to carry passengers. The success of drones in many domains has contributed greatly toward new innovation in the air transport field. (I discuss drone use in the urban space in Chapter 8.)

A popular vision for flying car design is vertical take-off and landing, or VTOL. As its name suggests, this vehicle would depart its destination by rising upward and then land at the destination by descending vertically. This system avoids the need for any type of runway — an impractical requirement in a dense urban environment. To this end, urban planners imagine flying cars departing and landing on special elevated surfaces, perhaps at the top of buildings. Other designs imagine cars driving normally on roads and then using VTOL to fly as desired.

Though the promise of flying cars and air taxis is tantalizingly close — the projection is widespread adoption beginning in the late 2020s — major challenges still exist, including

• Batteries: Most people believe that flying cars will be electric, to enable better movement management, eliminate carbon emissions, simplify design, and provide reliability. The power requirements to get lift and maintain flight — particularly with the weight of humans — is significantly more than that of a ground-based vehicle. Though the battery technology exists to power a flying car for minutes, to be viable it will need to power longer rides, including the capacity for backup in case of a main battery failure.
• Legislation: Every country will need to develop and pass laws and regulations for this new form of transport. New form factors will require completely new certifications. Everyone knows that governments don’t move quickly — particularly in complex areas such as this one. The industry is working hard already to get the ball rolling.
• Acceptance and use: It isn’t clear yet whether the public is ready for flying cars. Will people be comfortable riding around in autonomous passenger drones? Can safety expectations be met for both passengers and those on the ground? Is the market big enough to make the product viable? City residents may not tolerate the noise of these vehicles unless new technology can find a way to muffle the cars’ sounds.
• Cost: You can secure a helicopter ride within an urban area, but it’s cost restrictive. This concept is largely limited to executives from wealthy enterprises that can afford it. The cost of flying cars — whether to rent, buy, or pay per ride — will need to be at a level that enables a viable market. In addition, the cost of building and maintaining the vehicles will need to be similarly priced right. Mass-producing lightweight, aircraft-class cars has never been done. For those vying to get into this market, cost is a paramount concern.

We humans will soon know whether flying cars take to the skies of our cities. If they do, they will usher in a radical phase of urban change.

Take a look at Uber’s vision for air taxis:

www.uber.com/us/en/elevate/uberair

Cities without cars

Without a doubt, the arrival of the automobile and other gas-powered vehicles has had major effects on cities — both good and bad. For all their remarkable conveniences, efficiencies, and economic clout, cars have levied a hefty price on urban centers and all who live there.

Upon the introduction and widespread adoption of the car, communities that existed before its invention have had to create massive accommodations for it and all its requirements, such as widening streets (which often led to the destruction of historical artifacts), installing land-consuming parking spaces, and building networks of gas stations. The car transformed these towns in ways that have had significant detrimental effects, creating painful congestion, taking space away from other needs, causing dangerous conditions for pedestrians, and polluting the air. Visit Venice, Italy (when it’s not too crowded with wandering tourists), and you can experience the brief wonder and joy of a metropolis with no motorized vehicles on the streets.

Later on, when cities were built after the arrival of the car, they were purposely designed to be automobile-friendly — in fact, at the cost of people-friendliness. Contemporary city centers may manage large volumes of traffic, but they’ve struggled to create a sense of place or community. On average, between 50 and 60 percent of city center real estate is dedicated to vehicles. For all the many remarkable benefits that cars have brought to cities, in the long run they’ve created enormous challenges.

Is there the possibility of an alternative future — one where cars can be removed from the city center, resulting in an enhanced quality of life, reduced pollution, and the creation of a new model for human-centered urban living?

Reducing and eliminating cars from city centers is happening in communities across the world. Sometimes, the cars are simply banned. At other times, high tolls — a congestion charge — are implemented to deter traffic. As one Norwegian mayor put it, “The objective is to give the streets back to the people.”

City centers are becoming places where people meet, diners eat at outdoor restaurants, kids play safely, art is exhibited, and performances are played. Benches are added, trees and plants create a rich tapestry, pollution and crime levels drop, and bicycles safely traverse town squares. Centers now mimic the characteristics of small parks and all their attendant social and environmental benefits.

Eliminating the huge areas set aside for cars is also enabling denser urban housing to be built. This is much needed in centers that have a limited housing supply and where subsequently costs have skyrocketed.

Pedestrian and bicycle-only areas enable placemaking — the deliberate creation of public spaces that support the health, happiness, and well-being of communities.

Madrid (Spain), Oslo (Norway), Hamburg (Germany), Ghent (Belgium), Chengdu (China), and Mexico City (Mexico) are among the top cities already banning cars in their city centers. (See Figure 11-3.) Many more have plans to do so in the works. Some cities that want to experiment and gradually implement such bans — such as Paris, France — specify a weekday when cars aren’t allowed on specific roads.

Carless city centers won’t work for every city, and there are trade-offs and costs. In addition to some expected community opposition, removing cars can mean a huge hit to the economy — and it certainly limits the options for large numbers of people getting where they need to go. Accommodations and alternatives have to be provided such as expanded public transportation. Modifications are required in order to shift from road to park, for example. Bridges and bike paths may need to be built.

Other factors come into play here. In most developed nations, car ownership is declining. (This is, sadly, not the case in developing nations, where car ownership is generally growing as wealth increases.) The developed world has gone beyond what is known as peak car — the high point of car ownership — and ever since, the number of cars being sold has been declining. Generationally, millennials are also turning away from buying cars. The use of on-demand vehicles, such as Uber, Grab, and DiDi, is also changing car use dynamics. For example, parking spaces are less important when you’re dropped off at your location. It’s also anticipated that on-demand autonomous vehicles (AVs) will be potentially better at optimizing traffic flow and congestion on reduced road networks. The debate is still wide open on the potential true impact of AVs.

Given some clear advantages, many cities are starting to look at whether banning cars in certain areas makes sense — you need to determine whether you have the community support for it and the vision to make it happen, and whether it’s the smart thing for the city to do.